Summary:
Zip code 29128 in Rembert, South Carolina, is home to two small, rural elementary schools serving grades PK-5 with a combined enrollment of just 223 students, split across two different school districts.
For parents, the most striking difference between these two nearby schools is attendance. West Lee Elementary boasts an exceptionally low chronic absenteeism rate of just 3.7%, which is six times better than the state average and eight times better than its neighbor. In contrast, Rafting Creek Elementary struggles with a 29.5% chronic absenteeism rate, meaning nearly one in three students is regularly missing school. This attendance gap is particularly notable because it runs counter to academic performance trends. Rafting Creek, despite its attendance challenges, showed a dramatic 141% improvement in 4th-grade English Language Arts proficiency, jumping from 15% to 36.3% in one year, though its overall ranking remains in the bottom 1% of South Carolina schools. West Lee, with its superior attendance culture, has not published recent test scores, making direct academic comparisons impossible.
Financially, the two schools take very different approaches. West Lee Elementary spends $30,954 per student—54% more than Rafting Creek Elementary's $20,108—yet maintains only a slightly better student-teacher ratio (10.8:1 vs. 12.2:1). This suggests West Lee's extra funding may not be going toward smaller class sizes. Both schools belong to different districts: Rafting Creek is part of Sumter 01, which ranks in the bottom 11% of districts, while West Lee is in Lee 01, where the district-wide chronic absenteeism rate of 25.1% makes West Lee's 3.7% figure even more remarkable. For families, the choice comes down to weighing Rafting Creek's improving academics against West Lee's exceptional attendance and lower student-teacher ratios, though the lack of recent academic data for West Lee makes this a challenging comparison.
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